She Stands Accused Part 12

The accused several times tried to answer this charge, but failed. Her face was beaded with moisture.

THE PRESIDENT. Had you or had you not any white powder at Losmine?

HELENE. I can't say if I still had fever there.

THE PRESIDENT. What was that powder? When did you first have it?

HELENE. I had taken it at Locmine. Somebody gave it to me for two sous.

THE PRESIDENT. Why didn t you say so at the beginning, instead of waiting until you are confounded by the witness? [To Dr Toussaint]

What would the powder be, monsieur? What powder would one prescribe for fever?

DR TOUSSAINT. Sulphate of quinine; but that's not what it was.

Questioned by the advocate for the defence, the witness said he would not affirm that the powder he saw was a.r.s.enic. His present opinion, however, was that his father and sister had died from injections of a.r.s.enic in small doses.

A witness from Locmine spoke of her sister's two children becoming ill after taking chocolate prepared by the accused. The latter told her that a mob had followed her in the street, accusing her of the deaths of those she had been servant to.

Then came one of those curious samples of 'what the soldier said' that are so often admitted in French criminal trials as evidence. Louise Clocher said she had seen Helene on the road between Auray and Lorient in the company of a soldier. When she told some one of it people said, "That wasn't a soldier! It was the devil you saw following her!"

One rather sympathizes with Helene in her protest against this testimony.

From Ploermel, Auray, Lorient, and other places doctors and relatives of the dead came to bear witness to Helene's cooking and nursing activities, and to speak of the thefts she had been found committing.

Where any suspicion had touched Helene her piety and her tender care of the sufferers had disarmed it. The astonis.h.i.+ng thing is that, with all those rumours of 'white livers' and so on, the woman could proceed from place to place within a few miles of each other, and even from house to house in the same towns, leaving death in her tracks, without once being brought to bay. Take the evidence of M. Le Dore, son-in-law of that Mme Hetel who died in Auray, His mother-in-law became ill just after Helene's reputation was brought to his notice. The old lady died next day.

"The day following the revelation," said M. Le Dore, "I put Helene out.

She threw herself on the ground uttering fearsome yells. The day's meal had been prepared. I had it thrown out, and put Helene herself to the door with her luggage, INTO WHICH SHE HASTILY STOWED A PACKET. Mme Hetel died next day in fearful agony."

I am responsible for the italicizing. It is hard to understand why M. Le Dore did no more than put Helene to the door. He was suspicious enough to throw out the meal prepared by Helene, and he saw her hastily stow a packet in her luggage. But, though he was Mayor of Auray, he did nothing more about his mother-in-law's death. It is to be remarked, however, that the Hetels themselves were against the brusque dismissal of Helene.

She had "smothered the mother with care and attentions."

But one gets perhaps the real clue to Helene's long immunity from the remark made in court by M. Breger, son-in-law of that Lorient couple, M.

and Mme Dupuyde-Lome. He had thought for a moment of suspecting Helene of causing the child's death and the illness of the rest of the family, but "there seemed small grounds. What interest had the girl in cutting off their lives?"

It is a commonplace that murder without motive is the hardest to detect. The deaths that Helene Jegado contrived between 1833 and 1841, twenty-three in number, and the six attempts at murder which she made in that length of time, are, without exception, crimes quite lacking in discoverable motive. It is not at all on record that she had reason for wis.h.i.+ng to eliminate any one of those twenty-three persons. She seems to have poisoned for the mere sake of poisoning. Save to the ignorant and superst.i.tious, such as followed her in the streets to accuse her of having a "white liver" and a breath that meant death, she was an unfortunate creature with an odd knack of finding herself in houses where 'accidents' happened. Time and again you find her being taken in by kindly people after such 'accidents,' and made an object of sympathy for the dreadful coincidences that were making her so unhappy. It was out of sympathy that the Widow Lorey, of Locmine, took Helene into her house. On the widow's death the niece arrived. In court the niece described the scene on her arrival. "Helene embraced me," she said.

"'Unhappy me!' she wept. 'Wherever I go everybody dies!' I pitied and consoled her." She pitied and consoled Helene, though they were saying in the town that the girl had a white liver and that her breath brought death!

Where Helene had neglected to combine her poisoning with detected pilfering the people about her victims could see nothing wrong in her conduct. Witness after witness--father, sister, husband, niece, son-in-law, or relation in some sort to this or that victim of Helene's--repeated in court, "The girl went away with nothing against her." And even those who afterwards found articles missing from their household goods: "At the same time I did not suspect her probity. She went to Ma.s.s every morning and to the evening services. I was very surprised to find some of my napkins among the stuff Helene was accused of stealing."

"I did not know of Helene's thefts until I was shown the objects stolen," said a lady of Vannes. "Without that proof I would never have suspected the girl. Helene claimed affiliation with a religious sisterhood, served very well, and was a worker."

It is perhaps of interest to note how Helene answered the testimony regarding her thieving proclivities. Mme Lejoubioux, of Vannes, said her furnis.h.i.+ng bills went up considerably during the time Helene was in her service. Helene had purloined two cloths.

Helene: "That was for vengeance. I was furious at being sent away."

Sieur Cesar le Clerc and Mme Gauthier swore to thefts from them by Helene.

Helene: "I stole nothing from Mme Gauthier except one bottle of wine. If I commit a larceny it is from choler. WHEN I'M FURIOUS I STEAL!"

It was when Helene began to poison for vengeance that retribution fell upon her. Her fondness for the bottle started to get her into trouble.

It made her touchy. Up to 1841 she had poisoned for the pleasure of it, masking her secret turpitude with an outward show of piety, of being helpful in time of trouble. By the time she arrived in Rennes, in 1848, after seven years during which her murderous proclivities seem to have slept, her character as a worker, if not as a Christian, had deteriorated. Her piety, in the face of her fondness for alcohol and her slovenly habits, and against her now frequently exhibited bursts of temper and ill-will, appeared the hypocrisy it actually was. Her essays in poisoning now had purpose and motive behind them. Nemesis, so long at her heels, overtook her.

III

It is not clear in the accounts available to me just what particular murders by poison, what attempts at poisoning, and what thefts Helene was charged with in the indictment at Rennes. Twenty-three poisonings, six attempts, and a number of thefts had been washed out, it may be as well to repeat, by the prescription legale. But from her arrival in Rennes, leaving the thefts out of account, her activities had accounted for the following: In the Rabot household one death (Albert, the son) and three illnesses (Rabot, Mme Rabot, the mother-in-law); in the Ozanne establishment one death (that of the little son), in the hotel of the Roussells one death (that of Perrotte Mace) and one illness (that of the Veuve Roussell); at the Bidards two deaths (Rose Tessier and Rosalie Sarrazin). In this last establishment there was also one attempt at poisoning which I have not yet mentioned, that of a young servant, named Francoise Huriaux, who for a short time had taken the place of Rose Tessier. We thus have five deaths and five attempts in Rennes, all of which could be indictable. But, as already stated, the indictment covered three deaths and three attempts.

It is hard to say, from verbatim reports of the trial, where the matter of the indictment begins to be handled. It would seem from the evidence produced that proof was sought of all five deaths and all five attempts that Helene was supposed to be guilty of in Rennes. The father of the boy Ozanne was called before the Rabot witnesses, though the Rabot death and illnesses occurred before the death of the Ozanne child. We may, however, take the order of affairs as dealt with in the court. We may see something of motive on Helene's part suggested in M. Ozanne's evidence, and an indication of her method of covering her crime.

M. Ozanne said that Helene, in his house, drank eau de vie in secret, and, to conceal her thefts, filled the bottle up with cider. He discovered the trick, and reproached Helene for it. She denied the accusation with vigour, and angrily announced her intention of leaving.

Mme Ozanne took pity on Helene, and told her she might remain several days longer. On the Tuesday following the young child became ill. The illness seemed to be a fleeting one, and the father and mother thought he had recovered. On the Sat.u.r.day, however, the boy was seized by vomiting, and the parents wondered if they should send for the doctor.

"If the word was mine," said Helene, who had the boy on her knees, "and the child as ill as he looks, I should not hesitate." The doctor was sent for about noon on Sunday. He thought it only a slight illness.

Towards evening the child began to complain of pain all over his body.

His hands and feet were icy cold. His body grew taut. About six o'clock the doctor came back. "My G.o.d!" he exclaimed. "It's the croup!" He tried to apply leeches, but the boy died within a few minutes. Helene hastened the little body into its shroud.

Helene, said Ozanne, always talked of poison if anyone left their food.

"Do you think I'm poisoning you?" she would ask.

A girl named Cambrai gave evidence that Helene, coming away from the cemetery after the burial of the child, said to her, "I am not so sorry about the child. Its parents have treated me shabbily." The witness thought Helene too insensitive and reproached her.

"That's a lie!" the accused shouted. "I loved the child!"

The doctor, M. Brute, gave evidence next. He still believed the child had died of a croup affection, the most violent he had ever seen. The President questioned him closely on the symptoms he had seen in the child, but the doctor stuck to his idea. He had seen nothing to make him suspect poisoning.

The President: "It is strange that in all the cases we have under review the doctors saw nothing at first that was serious. They admit illness and prescribe mild remedies, and then, suddenly, the patients get worse and die."

M. Victor Rabot was called next. To begin with, he said, Helene's services were satisfactory. He had given her notice because he found her stealing his wine. Upon this Helene showed the greatest discontent, and it was then that Mme Rabot fell ill. A nurse was put in charge of her, but Helene found a way to get rid of her. Helene had no love for his child. The child had a horror of the servant, because she was dirty and took snuff. In consequence Helene had a spite against the boy. Helene had never been seen eating any of the dishes prepared for the family, and even insisted on keeping certain of the kitchen dishes for her own use.

At the request of his father-in-law Helene had gone to get a bottle of violet syrup from the pharmacist. The bottle was not capped. His father-in-law thought the syrup had gone bad, because it was as red as mulberry syrup, and refused to give it to his daughter (Mme Rabot). The bottle was returned to the pharmacist, who remarked that the colour of the syrup had changed, and that he did not recognize it as his own.

Mme Rabot having corroborated her husband's evidence, and told of Helene's bad temper, thieving, and disorderliness, Dr Vincent Guyot, of Rennes, was called.

Dr Guyot described the illness of the boy Albert and its result. He then went on to describe the illness of Mme Rabot. He and his confreres had attributed her sickness to the fact that she was enceinte, and to the effect of her child's death upon her while in that condition. A miscarriage of a distressing nature confirmed the first prognosis. But later he and his confreres saw reason to change their minds. He believed the boy had been poisoned, though he could not be certain. The mother, he was convinced, had been the victim of an attempt at poisoning, an opinion which found certainty in the case of Mme Briere. If Mme Rabot's pregnancy went some way in explaining her illness there was nothing of this in the illness of her mother. The explanation of everything was in repeated dosing of an a.r.s.enical substance.

The witness had also attended Mme Roussell, of the Bout-du-Monde hotel.

It was remarkable that the violent sickness to which this lady was subject for twenty days did not answer to treatment, but stopped only when she gave up taking food prepared for her by Helene Jegado.

He had also looked after Perrotte Mace. Here also he had had doubts of the nature of the malady; at one time he had suspected pregnancy, a suspicion for which there were good grounds. But the symptoms that later developed were not consistent with the first diagnosis. When Perrotte died he and M. Revault, his confrere, thought the cause of death would be seen as poison in an autopsy. But the post-mortem was rejected by the parents. His feeling to-day was that Mme Roussell's paralysis was due to a.r.s.enical dosage, and that Perrotte had died of poisoning. Helene, speaking to him of Perrotte, had said, "She's a chest subject. She'll never get better!" And she had used the same phrase, "never get better,"

with regard to little Rabot.

M. Morio, the pharmacist of Rennes from whom the violet syrup was bought, said that Helene had often complained to him about Mme Roussell.

During the illness of the Rabot boy she had said that the child was worse than anyone imagined, and that he would never recover. In the matter of the violet syrup he agreed it had come back to him looking red. The bottle had been put to one side, but its contents had been thrown away, and he had therefore been unable to experiment with it.

He had found since, however, that a.r.s.enic in powder form did not turn violet syrup red, though possibly a.r.s.enic in solution with boiling water might produce the effect. The change seen in the syrup brought back from M. Rabot's was not to be accounted for by such fermentation as the mere warmth of the hand could bring about.

Several witnesses, interrupted by denials and explanations from the accused, testified to having heard Helene say that neither the Rabot boy nor his mother would recover.